So I have something to confess here. I love, absolutely loooooooooove Chinese style pickles and ferments. Something about making unusable, unpalatable foods into something tasty through fermentation, pickling, drying, boiling etc speaks directly to the food nerd within me.
The first thing I did when I moved to Lancaster was to go to the local Asian supermarket, spend a good 45′ there and pick half the store.
One of the things I picked was pickled lettuce. Yep, you read that right. It was lettuce (the hard central part) that was covered by a delicious brine made of soy sauce, sugar and some other flavourings.
So when I found some lovely wild radish specimens on my walk today (seriously look at the size of those roots!!), I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them- Chinese-style pickled wild radish roots.
So to start, I washed the roots thoroughly, removed the green part and sliced them as thinly as I could.
In a small pot I added sugar, dark soy sauce, rice vinegar and water until the taste was right for me. I am not going to write proportions in this recipe because the right balance is a very personal thing. I put the pot on low heat, added the roots and brought to a simmer for 5′. I then placed in a jar for pickling and storage.
When you do this you will notice that the mix in the first hours smells strongly of Sulphur- that is because wild radish (Raphanum raphanistrum) is in the Brassica family which is notorious for the strong smell it exudes- anyone that tried to make homemade mustard can attest to that smell. The smell thankfully goes away after a few days and all you re left with is a spicy, crunchy deliciousness that is Chinese-style pickled wild radish root.
I made the simple version this time to see how the root behaves, but you can add ginger and garlic to the mix- that is always a winning combination.
The radish then can be added to stir fries or make a nice side to your main dishes.
(Fer)mental Greens 